Blake Respini - Political Science

Biography

Politics has always been an important part of my life. Growing up in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement and the other turbulent events of the 1960's, politics just seemed to ooze out of all aspects of a daily life and seemed integral to understanding the world around me. I graduated with honors from UC Santa Cruz in Politics in 1979 concentrating on political theory. I then received an MA in Education from Stanford University and went on to teach social sciences at a top ranked high school in San Francisco before earning an MA in Political Science from SFSU where I now also teach. Besides an ongoing interest in American Politics, Imy academci focus has been on issues of of poltical and economic development with an emphasis on Asia. My thesis work was on the prospects for democratic consolidation in Indonesia.